Dominic From Luton

SELECTED WORKS BY Dominic From Luton

Dominic From LutonDominic From Luton As Margaret Thatcher

2011

Triptych, C-Type print from digital negative

104.5 x 79 x 4.5 cm

In 2004, Luton was voted ‚ÄėBritain‚Äôs Crappiest Town‚Äô, which has made it, for the artist known as Dominic from Luton, ‚Äúa glorious window of opportunity, because no one likes it.‚ÄĚ Escaping from the shackles of dreary suburbia is a well-worn trope of popular culture ‚Äď everyone needs something to kick against ‚Äď but for Dominic, the town itself is the muse, not the spur to head for the bright lights. Take Shoes Off If You Love Luton!, a photo of a man‚Äôs arm, tattooed with a 99 Flake ice cream, holding aloft a single Reebok Classic trainer against a British summer sky.

Dominic From LutonShoes Off If You Love Luton !

2012

C-type print

237.8 X 168 cm

The visual language (that of 1980s leisure and childhood summers) announces Dominic‚Äôs particular interests: the iconography of small town Britain. Dominic‚Äôs work draws on decades-old imagery to suggest a country stuck in a cultural rut. In the self-explanatory Dominic from Luton as Margaret Thatcher, the artist is photographed in bad drag, gesticulating as though mid-speech, in a crumbling toilet, or wheeling a wheelchair furiously along the balcony of a council block: political history replayed as panto.

Dominic From LutonD.O.G

2012

C-type print

84.1 x 118.9 cm

There‚Äôs a historical stasis in Dominic‚Äôs work reflected in his use of the photograph as an agent of stillness. My Dad‚Äôs Pants, a sad line-up of baggy y-fronts on a radiator, is a photograph that parades its lack of visual interest as a kind of taunt. Dare you not to bother looking, it seems to say. Ignore it.